Archive for December 2010

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i miss going to work

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So happy that I got this retro-inspired tote bag from FARM for just S$11.98, after a 20% discount! FARM has a collection of quirky, interesting products created by Singaporean designers. I like their Ang Ku Kueh notebooks and Peng Kueh paper weight! FREE SHIPPING WITHIN SINGAPORE!

At the end of our main course at our favourite Italian restaurant on a rare night out, R asked, “Do you want to share a dessert?” I stared at him wide-eyed with disbelief. “What? Did you say SHARE?” I asked.

You see, it’s one of R’s pet peeves NOT to share desserts or any food for that matter. He never understood why women like to share food. “Why share? Just have your own!” he tells me whenever I suggest sharing something. “Men don’t like to share. We want to enjoy our own dessert. And apparently it’s not just him. I was talking to somebody else’s boyfriend and he shared the same view. “We don’t get enough to eat otherwise,” he told me.

But us women like sharing food because I think (a) we are afraid to eat too much and put on weight, (b) we genuinely cannot finish a big bowl of pudding and (c) we just like the lovey-dovey feeling of saliva-sharing, damn it!

From my experience, you know a man truly loves you once he lets you into his dessert bowl. When he’s willing to “not have enough” so that you can “not eat too much”. Well it only took me 10 freaking years to get into R’s. That night, we shared a panna cotta with berries in mulled wine. I was a very happy girl.

Despite my efforts to put on a well-cut red shift dress and slap on some make-up, my sister-in-law still came up to me halfway through the annual Boxing Day get-together she hosts and said, “Are you okay, love? You look shattered.”

This is what six months of sleep deprivation does to you. I’m really starting to feel the effects of these constant, never-ending bad nights. It was manageable in the beginning months and in fact for a while things were pretty good because Lucien was sleeping through the night. But it has been absolutely terrible over the past six to eight weeks. I have been up every two to three hours, trying to pacify a very grumpy baby with teething discomforts. He’s not in pain but I think the sensation of teeth moving through the gums is probably making him feel kinda weird and restless. And the worst thing is: a)I cannot help him grow him his teeth b)I don’t know how long it takes for his first teeth to cut! And so the sleepless nights continue. I understand that this is a process and there will come a time when he will and can FINALLY sleep through the night. (I am desperate enough to be willing to kowtow to whichever gods that will make this happen) But at the moment, I do feel like the living dead.

I’m just SO GLAD that at least I am able to take nine months off work and be a full-time mum. God knows how anyone can manage all this AND go to work in the day. Am I still glad I don’t have a helper? It is VERY difficult but…Absolutely. There’s no better feeling than being there for my baby when he needs me. Looking after my own child. While I still can.

The truth is we had forgotten what it was like to be a couple. For the past six months, all our attention had only been on one person. Lucien. Our days, hours and minutes are preoccupied with caring for him. And when we are not looking after him, we are talking about him. We have very little time to ourselves. Yes, we see each other everyday, and spend lots of hours together, but we don’t do anything as a couple. Very often, at the end of the day, I am so exhausted that I can barely stay awake beyond 9pm. When R gets home from work, he is tired too. We don’t even get to watch an hour of telly together, snuggle in bed or just chill out and talk nonsense. Forget about movie or dinner dates.

No, don’t get me wrong. We love each other but I could feel we were slowly drifting from lovers to companions and quite frankly, losing the spark which gave us the baby in the first place. But I suppose this is a natural phase that new parents go through. I mean, how can romantic feelings stir in anyone when a baby’s crying in the background, your hands are covered in baby poo or sick and the house is littered with baby paraphernalia? How can a woman feel sexy when her body’s being used to provide food, she has a horrible scar at her bikini line and she hasn’t quite lost all that extra weight? How can desires arise when we are sleep-deprived, the house is a complete mess and the baby’s sharing the same room?

It’s been six months since Lucien arrived and recently it got to a point where I felt something had to be done. We were rapidly losing the plot. On a whim, I arranged for my mother to have the baby for the afternoon and I planned a surprise. I booked a hotel room for the day, headed out to town as normal with R, told him we should split to run our individual errands and meet at a later time – at the shop just outside the hotel. When he appeared, I got a helpful passerby to pass him an envelope while I quickly sneaked up to the room. It was all very dramatic. He entered the room with the keycard I placed in the envelope, all touched and excited about the surprise and we spent the afternoon in bed. In peace. In each other’s arms, watching the BBC news, babbling and bickering, having coffee and cookies, reading the papers, then heading out to the shops and back again for a lie-down.

We reconnected. We found each other again. We relished those few hours where it was just US. We didn’t have Lucien at the back of our minds. We were physically, mentally and emotionally in tune, enjoying each other’s company. It ended up as a very rare and special day for the both of us. It evoked fond memories and reignited the passion we had for each other. We rediscovered what it’s like to be a couple again, and realised what it takes to keep this relationship going strong. We learned not to be complacent.

Just because we have become parents doesn’t and SHOULDN’T stop us from being lovers. It is SO EASY to let the fire die out. What an important lesson this has been.

This time six months ago, I was about to enter the operating theatre for an emergency Cesarean section, after being in labour for 11 hours. I sat for hours in the bath to ease the throbbing uterine pain the night before. I did not and could not sleep. Panadol was useless. I can still remember how weak and rough I felt when I first came home from the hospital. When I was discharged, I had to be wheeled to the car from the ward. I had fever and chills. I couldn’t bathe myself. I couldn’t even get out of bed on my own. I can still remember the first night home – Lucien was so, so, so hungry he cried until 2am. I had no breastmilk and as a last resort, R ran to the petrol station across the road and found a tin of infant formula. I had starved my baby that night. I can still remember crying everyday for the first few weeks. I was so clueless- what did my baby want?! On Christmas Day, Lucien turns six months. He’s still not sleeping through the night but he’s starting solids and he’s teething! The last time I had a proper night’s sleep was in June 2010. There were so many occasions where I thought, “I really wish I hadn’t had him.” There were so many tears of frustration. And then I would hear him chuckle away loudly like a silly goat. And then I realise I do love him to bits.

Hello you…

I am a Singaporean. I live in a small Welsh village surrounded by fields and sheep with my husband and our four-year-old son. I live to travel, and I eat to live. I ♥ animals and photography. I like to support the underdog. Is it too idealistic to say I want to change the world and lives?